Tsugunai: Atonement

Would you play a game in which you possess a dog? Atlus' RPG is a good, likeable game.

What would you do if you had the power to take control of peoples' lives? Would you help the people in need? Or destroy peoples' hopes and dreams? This is the subject that Cattle Call and Atlus tackled in their newest role-playing game for the PlayStation 2, Tsugunai: Atonement.

I was a bit skeptical when handed this RPG. First of all, when it comes to RPGs the PS2 doesn't have many good ones. And when starting up this one I felt I had a right to be prejudiced. The game looked slow and ugly. But to my surprise, as I looked past the graphics I found a very thoughtful and well-made game.

The story unfolds like this: After obtaining the Treasure Orb and being caught in a crumbling castle you are found by monks on a deserted beach. Awakening there, you stand over your body in a spiritual form. The Head Monk, the only person who can see you, instructs you to go to town, and to seek out the gnome, who may help. The gnome informs you that the only way to return to your body is to help those in need. He then shows you the only way to possibly to do this is to help people, by possessing their bodies. It gets better: you can't possess just anyone, oh no. The person being possessed must be sad first. That's right, sad, terribly, frightfully sad. Helping these people will cause them to become happy, thus removing your spirit from their body. Thus begins the quest of Tsugunai.

Gameplay Like any medieval RPG, players are given the basic stuff: a sword, armor, and magic. You find creatures to kill and upon defeating them gain experience, gold, and every so often, items (Where do monsters keep this stuff?). Tsugunai is your basic turn-based fighting system, but without the random enemy encounters. No random enemy encounters? How can this be? The creatures you fight are in plain sight, just like in, say, Chrono Trigger for Super Nintendo. The option to run past the monsters rather than having to fight them is great, especially for the dungeon levels.

There is one town. Yes, I hear you asking "One town? An RPG with one town?" Some of the game takes place outside the town, such as in the monastery, the graveyard, and in random troll caverns, but most of the game takes place inside the town. The town gate leads to different areas, and if you don't have a specific are to go to, you can't leave the town.

I especially love the tavern where all they sell is beer and the fact no matter who you possess the innkeeper will never sell you a pint. As you complete different peoples' quests the town changes, other areas are accessible, and the townsfolk change their dialog. For example, the Cathedral is constantly being worked on throughout Tsugunai, and only comes to completion during the last several quests in the game.

When it comes to turn-based fighting games, Tsugunai is one of the best. There's no meter gauging when you attack, i.e. Final Fantasy IX, but there is a "Strage Attack" (a Limit Break that's spelled just like that) meter that can be filled up and upon doing so can release a world of hurt on your enemies.

The unique feature that sets Tsugunai apart from the other RPGs is the guards. "Guard? Every RPG I've played has a guard option in the menu." That may be so, but if you look in Tsugunai's battle menu the "guard" option is not available. That's because it's within the game itself; I'll explain. When an enemy attacks, you have five options to defend depending on what button you push, X, O, Triangle or Square. Pressing X enables you to do the basic guard, which reduces damage greatly. The O button executes the back step resulting in no damage but requires you to have at least 1/4 strage points in your strage meter. Using Triangle counter attacks the enemy and Square enables you to gain more strage points than the other guards. The fifth and most fun option is to just take the attack, full damage. (Oh wait, that's not fun.) All of these guards require timing on your part (Except for the fifth option) depending on what attack the enemy uses. And, of course, different enemies require different timings.

Upon exploring the menu screens players encounter the quest command. Here, the completed quests, the remaining quests waiting to be solved, and the mission you're currently on can be seen. Different quests require you to be different people, doing different things. Although you take possession of many people, there are only five main characters who you return to throughout the game.

Characters

Reise: Well, one would hope you succeed in reclaiming your own body.

Fisela: A tomboyish young woman who hates her father the chief fisherman.

Ifem: A Raven (bounty hunter) who takes jobs in order to pay for the debt his dead father left him.

Ashgo: A clumsy apprentice monk trying to prove himself.

Raffer: Once chief commander of the castle now a fugitive with amnesia.

These are also the only characters who fight battles. Every time a mission is completed you are released from their body, but you must return to them and continue to complete quests until their ultimate goal is achieved.

Now I know what you're thinking, "If I possess someone new, won't I lose all of my stuff?" Calm yourself young warrior, for Tsugunai has compensated for this. Basically, you keep all items when traveling from host to host. Let's just say "It's Magic!"

Magic Speaking of magic, that's a very good subject to tackle next. Mainly because I spent the first few missions wondering "Where the hell is my cure spell?" To obtain spells first you need runes. Runes are different colored shapes with magic locked inside of them. They come in the form of triangles, squares, and parallelograms and can be purchased at the Rune Shop. The other items you need before casting spells are Amulets. In each amulet, there is a unique groove, into which you can imbed runes. Imbedding the runes into the groove unlocks the spell. But make sure the Amulet is equipped for there were plenty of times when I ventured off into battle cursing because I forgot to equip my cure spell.

Summon Beasts Inside every Amulet is a different Summon Beast. To unlock the Summon Beast you must fill up the groove in your amulet with runes. It's a puzzle, finding the right shaped piece, the right spells, and fitting them into the corresponding groove. When done correctly the Amulet will flash and the Summon Beast will be unlocked. The Summon Beast is an uncontrollable monster that fights for you. Different Beasts have different abilities. The Demon breathes fire, the Golem throws rocks, and the Dragon heals you. (Dragon heals you? What?) In battle you can summon up to two Summon Beasts at one time and in a world where it's everyone versus you it's nice to have someone on your side.

Graphics For a PlayStation 2 game the graphics aren't that good. When I first picked up this game I dreaded playing it because it looked like it was going to be another Evergrace or Ephemeral Phantasia (I hated both these games). The character models are not that bad except for their expression, the vacant stare like someone just killed a puppy and the initial shock hasn't worn off. The movie sequences, however, were a little bit better. Emphasis on "little." The castle crumbling and the monsters look good. The one saving grace in the area of graphics is the Summon Beasts. The developers did a good job on creating a giant killer fish that spray bubbles at your enemies and make them fall to sleep. You just don't play this game for the graphics, if you do you'll cry.

Sound I'm conflicted about the sound. First of all, there are no voices. You would think if they put a game on PS2, especially an RPG, there'd be voices. Then again I've never, and I mean never, played a game where the English character voices were any good. "Don't O-pen THAT... door." Ah, I loved Resident Evil. It just seems like the voice actor or the voice direction is totally off. So maybe it's a good thing this game didn't have voices.

Now the music in Tsugunai is a totally different matter. The music is great! The battle music is catchy, soft, and not annoyingly repetitive. And I absolutely love the tavern music. I'm not sure why, it's your typical renaissance tavern music, but I get happy every time I enter the bar. "EH BARKEEP!! POUR ME A PINT!!"

The Verdict

So is Tsugunai good or bad? Definitely good. This is a great game! Finally PS2 has a decent RPG. Granted you have to get past the graphics but that battle engine just had me wanting to play more and more. The ability to interact while the enemy is attacking you is such a great feature. And you need this feature, especially in boss battles when they execute attacks that kill you within two hits. Stupid boss -- I hate you!

The other great feature was the fact you could be various different people. One of my favorite RPGs of all time was Dragon Warrior IV because you could play other peoples quests, even before you started your own. I admit that after battling so much with one character it was a relief to play someone else who couldn't fight. Thus there were no battles.

It was a nice balance of puzzles and battles. My favorite character was one who couldn't battle, the Dog. Your mission was simply to find a master. But that wasn't the best part. By far the best part, maybe in the whole game, was the ability to talk to cats... and have them talk back. "Get out of here! This is a cat town!" Whoa man, OK, I was just sniffin' your butt,... I don't want trouble!